Now,
after the ordeal of the football game Sigg walked home alone. He was
glad for the time to reflect and for the respite. Suddenly a strange,
cloaked man with only one eye not covered by a ragged patch stepped
out into Sigg's path from an alcove on the left. "Who are you?"
Sigg demanded of the man, feeling no fear but annoyance at the
disturbance. The old man cackled through his white mustache and
beard.

"Do
I look like a man whose name matters son?"

Pausing for just a
moment Sigg replied, "Maybe not to others, but you are in my path."

"Oh, in such a hurry
are you? Perhaps I should not warn you of impending danger as was my
intention."

The younger man's
eyes flashed left and right, "I see no signs."

"Ah, but then it
wouldn't be much of a danger would it?"

"Enough riddles old
man, out with it," Sigg demanded with all the authority he could
muster (which was quite formidable in one so young to be sure).

"Always in a hurry
you young bucks," the old vagrant cackled.

Sigg now made no
reply.

"Ah, now silence,
like patience, can be a virtue worth knowing. Using it wisely can
earn you respect and much more. You see, there is a gang of murderous
thieves in the next alley just waiting for one such as you of whom to
seek their own gain. It would be good counsel to seek another path on
your way."

Sigg's eyebrow rose,
"Well, I thank you old man. Surely I repent for my earlier
rudeness." He gave no excuse, only apologized.

Laughing quietly the
old man winked and then slunk away into the shadows of the alcove he
had come from initially.

Grinning a bit Sigg
took a right at the next stop light and continued in that way. It was
not long before he came to the local hospital. Laughing aloud this
time Sigg thought, "At least if I had continued on my way I
wouldn't be far from a hospital when those thieves caught me." As
he walked by the entrance, something inexplicable forced the young
hero-of-the-day to stop. Turning to the right he looked up at the
large glass entry flanked by plate windows extending to the second
floor. Almost immediately, some force from within himself pulled
Sigg's eyes upward. It felt odd to be so lacking in control over
his movements. Never the less his head craned slightly up in a fluid
motion, following his eyes. Counting the windows from the bottom
floor and from the left as he moved his eyebrow rose for the second
time. Motion stopped as abruptly as it had started. Again unbidden by
his own conscious the boy's view was locked on a seventh floor
window three from the left.

He could not yet
imagine what had beckoned him look upwards in such a fashion. Nor
could he comprehend what the seemingly casual action of looking there
would bring to his future. The beauty and tragedy triumph and fall
that were to come would be deep and enduring. It was not in his power
to see his own fate. There was, however, a sense of coming change
cast upon the boy in that moment. Though he did not know the scope
and breadth of the changes that were ahead, he did feel the winds
changing as they were from the last clutches of summer to deepest
fall.

Unaware but supremely
confident in his own future, Sigg walked forward. He moved to the
doors of a hospital that would lead to the rest of his life. With
such a small decision as to visit the ill, he sealed his own fate and
that of countless others. As an unwitting general marshals his troops
in a deceptively safe position which is really an ambush point for
his enemies.

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